You Saw the Forest, Now Come Inside
by Phantasmik
Summary: The thing about love, is it takes time. AU. Folklore, scary trees, fairies who suck at their job. Slash.


**A/N: **Written for **kiss_me_cait23 **during Dark Month. Day 30, _Gancanagh!Shisui _. You'll have to forgive me, because once again I have mangled a perfectly good dark prompt. I also may have used some creative license and merged the Scottish geancanach lore with the Irish Gancanagh lore. Just a bit. And well, yes. This is still dark, but it's the kind of Snow White dark that goes from scary trees to fluffy bunnies. Or something. IDEK.

**If you don't know what a Gancanagh is, you should probably google it before you read this. **But if you want the short version, it's a type of fairy known as the "love talker." It usually has a pipe, and it seduces young women then disappears, leaving them to kill themselves in grief/die of a broken heart. The Scottish version though, the Geancanach, is believed to be harmless, craving the warmth of the fireplace and usually found around a blazing fire at your hearthside. So yes, I kind of merged them. There's more on **Monstropedia.**

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The village is small, quiet. It's nothing like the city, where Itachi had grown used to a nightly lullaby of drunken laughter and the far away sound of muffled retching. The people say hello when they walk by, and already Itachi's mother has been offered six different pies- a welcome, they say.

It is stifling- the good nature, the size, the _quiet_ of it all.

Small towns have their fair share of stories, Itachi learns. He is sixteen, and a girl in his class insists that things like possession, crossroad deals, and an old barn a few miles down the road being haunted is real. She tells him their stories; of the man who had killed his wife years back and how no one has lived in their house since- scared off by the sound of her screams. Of the little boy who murdered his entire class and burned down the old school.

She smiles at him and leans in close, whispers as if she's sharing a secret, "Sometimes you can still taste the ash."

Itachi is far too polite to laugh, so he smiles kindly and tells her that he's never really believed in such things.

At that, she pulls back- startled, and dark hair whips back over her shoulder, spilling down her back like spilt ink. She breathes quietly in the silence and watches him across the space between their desks. Their homeroom teacher arrives, calling for silence. She still looks sad, and Itachi wonders how it is that in this strange place, things are so very backwards.

He turns back to his books, expecting that they are done, and is surprised when she reaches over and tugs him closer to her- her lips spider silk soft against the curve of his ear.

"Just don't go into the woods."

.

The town is too quiet, his coursework too dull.

Itachi is bored.

The line of trees not fifty feet from their house buzzes with life- with the sound of crickets and wavering branches in the breeze. It beckons to him, the solitude and the lack of noisy human whispers.

Itachi is bored.

He goes.

.

The forest is something like a refuge for him. He walks between the trees, between peeling bark and green leaves, ducks beneath branches and listens to the sounds of birdsong.

There isn't much to do, but then, there hadn't been much to do in the village either.

.

At night, the forest takes on a sinister edge. The trees- so inviting in the day go sharp, twisted, branches turned to jagged things that cut through the approaching night. And it is _cold_, so frigid that his breath fogs the air in front of him- like slivers of ice lodged in his lungs. What little moonlight that makes it through the canopy stutters and goes out, attacked by shadows before it properly reaches the leaf strewn ground.

His chest goes tight with something that's more wariness than fear, because he can _feel_ it, the prickle at the base of his neck- that feeling that someone- something is watching him.

His breath comes in ragged gasps the more panicked he makes himself, because he is well and truly lost- can't tell one horrifying silhouette from the next, the feeling in his chest intensifying, making him think back on that girl in class, who had looked at him with pity. Who had said, _Don't go into the woods_.

When he stumbles out of those line of trees, sees his house lit up in front of him- his mother talking with Sasuke at the window, he is so relieved that he almost misses the glint of eyes in the dark, the silhouette that stares after him.

.

The next day, the girl eyes him with pity and pats his hand. Tells him that it's okay. That no one believes at first.

.

The problem though, is that Itachi is curious.

The problem is- Itachi goes back.

.

Far enough in, the trees fall away- growing fewer and fewer until Itachi stumbles into a small glen- complete with a trickling stream and a fallen log.

There is a man there, curling black hair and pale skin, a pipe tucked between grinning lips.

"Thought you wouldn't come back, kid," he grins, setting the pipe down on the grass. He pats the log beside him and his smile is disarming, something that makes something hot and _interested_ curl like liquid heat down Itachi's spine.

Itachi sits, and isn't quite sure why he does so.

He is curious, yes, but he is also cautious. Wary of this smiling man so far from civilization.

"That was you the other night, wasn't it?"

When Itachi nods, his smile brightens and he nibbles on a nail. "Thought so. You should be careful though. Many of us have already taken a liking to you. Had to chase a few of the locals off so you could make it home."

Us. Locals. So you could make it home.

The girl had been right.

The man is still smiling, tipping the contents of his pipe onto the log beside him- replacing it with identical, untouched grass.

"So what are you?" he asks softly, curious.

"Can't tell you that now, darling. I'd have to kill you. You though-"

A few birds shriek somewhere in the depths of the forest, startled into flight and it makes Itachi start slightly, realize that he has been here too long. That the sun is dipping past the line of trees already. The man's smile falters, and Itachi can see a glimpse of something foreign in his eyes.

"You can call me Shisui."

.

Shisui walks him home and though the forest is once again overcome with shrieks and phantom calls, he isn't bothered.

.

It is raining, the next day, and by the time Itachi gets to the clearing, he is soaked.

Shisui just watches him, ever present grin stretched wide across his lips and says, "Darling, you shouldn't have. You humans are so _fragile_. You'll catch something."

Itachi perches at the edge of the log and wrings water from his hair.

He is bored.

"Tell me a story," he says.

.

"Brother-" Sasuke starts, his eyes wide and confused when Itachi steps foot in the house- still drenched to the bone and shivering from the icy imprints that the forest has left on him. His chest though, there he is warm inside.

"Why are you smiling?"

He doesn't particularly know.

.

Shisui isn't always in the clearing. Sometimes he is waiting for Itachi just inside the woods, or perhaps hiding behind a tree, waiting to jump out and startle him. Sometimes he likes to hide, seeing how long it takes for Itachi to find him.

Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they listen to the sounds of the forest. Other times, Shisui shows him things- things in the forest that no human has seen.

His touch is frigid, biting cold against the skin at the nape of Itachi's neck where Shisui presses him down low. They watch as the creatures dance, fairies small and large, young and old, beautiful and ugly. They dance in their fairy ring and Shisui presses his nose up against Itachi's cheek, smile brushing against Itachi's jaw when he whispers, "They are called the Sidhe."

Itachi shivers and pretends that he feels the cold.

.

"We don't understand," his mother says, her face pressed to his chest. "You're never here anymore. Your brother misses you."

He smiles at her, polite, and says, "I'll try to be here more often, mother."

Shisui is waving to him from the trees, pipe in one hand. He looks anxious.

Itachi leaves, the door slamming behind him.

.

"It's called the Cu Sith," Shisui grins, fingers stroking course green fur. The creature is frightfully large, bigger than a car, it's shoulder level with the top of Itachi's head. A tail the size of a tree branch is thumping delightedly against the ground as Shisui scratches the top of its head.

"This one's bigger than most," he goes on, grabbing hold of Itachi's wrist and dragging his hand over to moss green fur. It isn't quite soft. There are brambles tangled into the hair that Itachi tries to work loose without even thinking, smiling when the beast nuzzles up against him. "-she gave birth just last spring- you should see the pups- they're huge!"

"What's your name?" Itachi asks it quietly.

The response is a loud, delighted bark that makes his ears ring for the rest of the day.

.

(The thing about seduction is, it takes time. Perhaps a fairy could charm you with it's glamour, and leave you crying over a broken heart not an hour after meeting. But real seduction, real _love_- now that takes all the time in the world.)

.

The days are growing colder, which means the forest at night- always a bit supernaturally glacial, becomes unbearable. Itachi shivers and tucks himself closer to Shisui and ignores the way the dew in his hair forms icicles.

Shisui watches him with worried eyes and tells him, "maybe you shouldn't come at night, anymore."

.

His grades have been dropping for months, but he doesn't really care. His father tells him that maybe this wasn't a good idea. _Perhaps we should return to the city?_ he asks Itachi's mother quietly when Itachi comes in, lips blue, droplets of sweat frozen to his neck.

Itachi is quiet.

He won't go.

.

"Could I stay with you?" he asks Shisui, teeth digging into the edges of his lip.

Shisui frowns at him.

"For how long?" he asks, sounding puzzled.

Itachi can't answer. He doesn't know. Maybe forever.

.

The first time Shisui touched him, he'd frozen. It was like being stuck in a blizzard, so cold that one touch had been like fire. Itachi had stared at his wrist for days, wondering why he could still feel that lingering brush of fingers against his skin.

The first time Shisui _touches_ him, it's different.

Shisui is cold, yes, burning with it. But-

(sweat slick skin, harsh gasps swallowed by the sounds of the Autumn day, grass warm beneath him, kisses dusted across each of his ribs- push and pull, _breathe_-)

-he warms up fast.

.

Itachi tells Shisui, voice thick with something he doesn't let turn into grief, that his parents want to move. That they are worried for him. That they think something is wrong with him.

Itachi tells Shisui that he wants to stay with him, that he doesn't think he _can_ leave.

Shisui smiles.

.

He isn't there the next day. Or the day after that. Or the one after that.

.

Itachi thinks that if this had been a normal relationship, he wouldn't feel like he were coming apart inside. If Shisui was human, that maybe this betrayal wouldn't hurt quite so bad.

.

He leaves with his parents.

(Doesn't see the figure at the edge of the trees.)

.

He comes back.

(Cannot help himself.)

.

Three years. The house in the little village at the edge of the woods is his now. His parents do not want it, and it will be years yet before his brother could have a use for it. The town is as quiet and stifling as he remembered, and though it itches beneath his skin to do so, he does not venture into the woods.

Which, as it turns out, is okay. Because Shisui comes to him.

.

"You were supposed to kill yourself," Shisui grins, spread in front of the hearth like he owns the place. "Or don't you know the lore?"

"Perhaps you should have found a better victim," he replies instead, folding a blanket across the back of the couch. Shisui's grin widens. "See, this is why my mother always told me that I was awful with all the girls. I never managed a proper kill."

"Did you always manage to fall for your victims then, or is that new?" Itachi asks, going back into the kitchen to grab the kettle off the stove. When he comes back, Shisui has his pipe tucked into the corner of a sheepish smile.

"I'm afraid that's just you, darling."

Itachi has never seen him bathed in the light of fire before, but he thinks he likes the effect. He smiles, just a bit.

"Thought so."

The fire is warm, as is the tea he offers Shisui.

He smiles. Leans in for a kiss.

Shisui still warms up fast.


End file.
